Some characterizations of the preimage of \(A_{\infty }\) for the Hardy-Littlewood maximal operator and consequences (Q2316561)

Let \(M\) denote the non-centered Hardy-Littlewood maximal operator and \(w\) a weight, which means that \(w\) is a non-negative locally integrable function on \(\mathbb{R}^n\). The classic \(A_p\) classes for weights precisely quantify when \(M\) maps \(L^p(w)\) into \(L^{p,\infty}(w)\) boundedly for \(p \geq 1\) and have the property that \(A_p \subset A_q\) if \(p < q\). In this paper the author considers a weight in \(A_{\infty}\) of a particular form, namely \(Mw \in A_{\infty}\) and shows that this implies \(Mw \in A_1\). Due to nesting of the \(A_p\) classes the reverse implication is immediate so the first result of the paper is that if \(w\) is any weight then \(Mw\in A_{\infty} \iff Mw \in A_1\). This leads immediately to an extension of a result by Neugebauer that appeared first in [\textit{D. Cruz-Uribe}, Rocky Mt. J. Math. 26, No. 2, 545--583 (1996; Zbl 0861.42007)] which gives the following characterization of weights \(w\) such that \(Mw\in A_{\infty}\), namely that happens if and only if there exist \(s>1\) and \(C_0 > 0\) such that \((Mw^s)^{\frac{1}{s}}(x) \leq C_0 Mw(x)\). A characterization of weights that fulfill that property was given as an open problem in [\textit{D. Cruz-Uribe} and \textit{C. Pérez}, J. Funct. Anal. 174, No. 1, 1--17 (2000; Zbl 0976.46018)]. This leads to further applications such as a result analogous to the characterization of \(A_1\) weights by \textit{R. Coifman} and \textit{R. Rochberg} [Proc. Amer. Math. Soc. 79, 249--254 (1980; Zbl 0432.42016)] as well as improvements of some known inequalities for singular integral operators.